The research‐teaching nexus in a graduate CALL course: An action research study

Abstract

AbstractThe ‘research‐teaching nexus’ means integrating disciplined‐based research into course content to develop students’ research ability. Though such integration has been investigated in various higher education content areas, no previous CALL teacher education research seems to have addressed it. This study explored how research should be integrated into a graduate CALL course and how such integration influences students’ research awareness and skills. The content‐focused and process‐focused forms of the research‐teaching nexus were integrated into a graduate CALL course taught in a language teacher education programme at an Arab university. The course was taught to a group of female MA student teachers for a 15‐week academic term. Qualitative data was collected using observation and an open‐end questionnaire within an action research framework. The students reported positive evaluation of research integration into the CALL course. Meanwhile, the observational data indicates that research integration has fostered their CALL research awareness and enabled them to learn how to craft some key research elements, namely developing research titles and questions, and selecting the research method. The results generally imply that developing students’ CALL research skills through the process‐focused teaching forms is a more complicated task than enhancing their research awareness via the content‐focused ones.